Musical Program On ‘Outlaws, Villains And Rogues’ Next For Historical Society

The bad guys are the ones who always make the news, as the saying goes.

Newtown Historical Society will examine some of the badies of history in a musical presentation by Rick Spencer titled “Outlaws, Villains and Rogues,” on Monday, May 9, at 7:30 pm. Mr Spencer’s program will be offered in the community room of C.H. Booth Library, 25 Main Street (Route 25) in Newtown.

Although we tend to think of outlaws as a western creation, it seems they have abounded in every civilization. There has been William Stuart, self-styled “First and Most Celebrated Counterfeiter in Connecticut” in the first half of the 19th Century, and of course Captain Kidd is reputed to have buried his treasure in or off shore of nearly every town along the Connecticut coast.

The word in its original meaning of simply being outside the protection of the law rather than being actively pursued by authority contributed to an early “discovery” of America: When Eric the Red was declared outlaw in Iceland, he felt it wise to move to Greenland rather than risk the whim of neighborly mayhem and murder without legal protection. Leif Ericsson subsequently discovered the New World’s Vineland while searching for his father.

Mr Spencer’s program will address the human obsession with documenting various misdeeds using songs and ballads as the informational medium. Early British ballads collected by Francis James Child in the late 1800s, and penny broadsides to popular songs from the 1700s to the mid-20th Century will all be presented to tell the stories of Captain Kidd, Jesse James, Stagger Lee, Pretty Boy Floyd and others. The program will also include a discussion of why we as a culture are so fascinated by misdeeds, violence, and mayhem.

Rick Spencer grew up in Newtown, and has performed throughout the United States, as well as in Canada, England, Portugal, France, Poland, Germany, and the Netherlands. He is best known as a historian, researcher, and performer, but is also recognized as a composer and writer of songs that run the range from delicate and sensitive to humorous and irreverent.

Mr Spencer is additionally the site administrator at Connecticut Landmarks’ Hempstead House in New London, and is the executive director of the Dr Ashbel Woodward House in Franklin. He presented the program on the Freemen for Fremont presidential campaign of 1856 for the Newtown Historical Society in 2010.

Newtown Historical Society programs are free and open to the public. Refreshments will be served following the presentation.

For further information, call 203-426-5937.